“Challenge Accepted”: Vegan Chocolate Rugelach (Ohh Yeahhh)

November 5, 2013

Welcome back to the “Challenge Accepted” series! Today, we are making vegan rugelach, a traditional Jewish pastry in which a triangle of dough is wrapped around a filling. My food guru Elli challenged me to make them, and because she is the wise expert on all good food in Philly, we listen to her.

In our discussion of the amazing treat, Elli warned that any decent rugelach must contain cream cheese in the dough. A quick internet search will prove that most people claiming to make authentic rugelach have no idea what they are talking about (i.e., no cream cheese in the dough). (They are probs the ones who don’t know how to say the ‘ch’ sound at the end of the word. #goy). Elli also said that, if making chocolate rugelach (which of course I was going to do; screw fruit filling unless it’s for hamentashen), wrapping the dough around a pile of chocolate chips is cheating. Hell no was I going to cheat, so we are using the same chocolate-cinnamon filling from our delicious babka experience. It adds a bit of work, but it is absolutely worth it. In fact, the extra work from using that filling actually makes the wrapping part easier: The filling is a big square to be laid right on top of the dough, so I rolled the dough into logs instead of wrapping 30 individual crescent rolls. I know, I know, after all the “I’m not going to cheat!” mumbo jumbo, you’re probably like, “Omigod you are so cheating with the wrapping!” Hush your face and go make some rugelach.
As you’ve probably learned, I do not like sharing recipes that have hard-to-find ingredients or that use ready-made things. For chrissakes, I made Cheesy Blasters from scratch. But this was my first attempt at rugelach, so I used ready-made vegan cream cheese. Now that I have some experience, I’ll work on a homemade substitute to use next time so those of you without access to vegan cream cheese can make these.. For those of you who can find vegan cream cheese, definitely buy a tub and use it all in this recipe! It’s worth it!

VEGAN CHOCOLATE-CINNAMON RUGELACH

INGREDIENTS:
For the DOUGH:

8 oz. vegan cream cheese
8 oz. vegan butter (I know)
2C flour
1/2t salt
1/2C sugar
1t vanilla extract

For the FILLING:

10 oz. semi-sweet chocolate
1/4C vegan butter
2t cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:

Mix your dry dough ingredients together in a mixing bowl.
Drop dollops of the cream cheese and butter into the dry mixture.
Cut the mix together with a pastry cutter. (You can also pulse it all in a food processor, but yikes more shite to clean up.)
While you are using the pastry cutter, drip your vanilla across the bowl.
The mixture will look somewhat pebbly, but much more moist (sorry) than when making pie crust. When you are done cutting in the fat, the dough should easily come into a moist (sorry!) ball with your hands.
Knead several times.
Break the dough into 2 balls, flatten into disks, and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

While the dough is in the fridge:
For the filling:

Melt the chocolate and butter together over low heat.
Once it is nearly all melted, turn off heat, stir in the cinnamon, and continue stirring slowly until all the chocolate is melted.
Cover a big baking sheet with parchment or wax paper.
Pour the chocolate over the paper and spread into as thin a layer as possible.
Refrigerate for 2 hours or until firm.

Assembly:

Take the dough disks out of the fridge and let thaw for about 45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350°.
Roll out each disk to about 1/4 inch thickness, rolling it not into a square but into a rectangle, about 2x as long as it is wide.
Break the sheet of chocolate in half and place directly on top of the rolled-out dough. Break it into whatever pieces and shapes necessary to cover the dough.
Roll it up from the long side over, so you are making an extra long log (not a super-thick one, as you’d make if you roll the wrong way).
Bake for 30 minutes, until the crust looks golden.
Remove from the oven, and let cool for about 30 minutes before cutting.
Cut into pieces about an inch thick.
Enjoy !

See: Step 2 (dollops)

I still don’t think I know how to use a pastry cutter properly

I was out of plastic wrap so I used a big ziplock bag. Also look at my adorable London Underground tea towel! I set it up so the photo highlights my station.

I rolled it into several logs. You can too!

These came out SO well! I can’t wait to experiment with the basics more. They are really rich so you can’t eat the whole batch, which is good. They were much easier to make than I made it seem, I’m sure. Give it a shot and let me know how it goes!